A Reason To Be Thankful

Looks like there are no plans from director Ron Maxwell to bring Jeff Shaara’s The Last Full Measure to the big screen. From Shaara’s website:

REGARDING “THE LAST FULL MEASURE”:

Many of you have written, asking if the film version of this book is being produced, to complete the Civil War trilogy. Unfortunately, because of the poor box office results for “Gods and Generals”, Ted Turner has dropped all plans to finance a film version of “Last Full Measure”. Someone else may yet step forward, but so far, no one in Hollywood has shown interest. Despite the many rumors to the contrary, I’m sorry to say that no film is now in the works.

Is anyone really surprised that no one has stepped forward to fund these ridiculous scripts? I would like to think that the failure of Gods and Generals is a reflection of the sophistication of the average moviegoer.

Hard to say, since they do different things. “Gettysburg” focused on only one battle, and “G&G” only on bits and pieces of the first half of the war. “North and South” 1 and 2 at least encompassed the whole time period of the war, including some antebellum time. Same for “The Blue and the Gray.”

“North and South” was surprisingly accurate in its history, considering it was a Hollywood production. It’s still not to be confused with actual history. Same for “The Blue and the Gray.” I think “Glory” is probably the best Civil War movie so far. Even that had some inaccuracies.

The biggest problem I had with “G&G” was the extremely poor editing. If one weren’t familiar with the war’s chronology, one could easily become confused and disoriented in the movie.

I wholeheartedly agree with you, Kevin. “G&G” was a complete waste of time and money. That film should be shown to insomniacs as a cure. By intermission, I could no longer remember anything from my life before I entered the theater.

My problem is that GaG tried to cover too much war in too little time. Even as a ministry student, there was too much religion in there for me at the expense of history. LFM would do better by concentrating on a single campaign (P’burg) to Appomattox. GaG jumbled it up too much and then dropped 12 months of the war entirely.

Personally, I liked G’burg out of all of them, followed by Glory. N&S was decent, but I found the mirror images of the two leads to be irritating. B&G, I thought was just horrible.

HaNavi, — I think I will pass on your question. They are all pretty much equally bad – perhaps a one or two have some redeeming qualities. Movies about historical events tend not to concentrate on worrying about getting the story right. Rather they are made to entertain and I have no problem with that. G&Gs was in no way entertaining unless you fall into that category where everything that Stonewall Jackson does is divinely inspired.

Of all the Civil War movies I’ve seen (which isn’t many) I think _Glory_ is the best followed by _Gettysburg_. The others are full of Lost Cause mythology or are just really bad movies.

The Blue and the Gray_ was good (although I fail to see why they felt it necessary to endow that one guy with psychic powers), but wasn’t that a TV miniseries?

There were some things that I liked about _Cold Mountain_ but overall I didn’t think it was a very enjoyable movie.

I think its about time someone made a good movie about John Brown — one that portrays Brown as the hero that he was. Brown is treated as somewhat of a Christ-lite figure in _The Blue and the Gray_ but they leave the viewer with the distinct impression that he was unstable.

Since we have been talking about the PBS documentary _Reconstruction_ recently, am I not the only one who thinks the ordeal of Vermont “carpetbagger” Marshall Twitchell is the perfect vehicle for a movie? It has everything: murder, backstabbing, intrigue, heroism, and even a tragic love affair between a southern belle and the said yankee interloper.

Personally, I am disappointed that they are not making _The Last Full Measure_. While I have no doubt that it would be a historical fraud, it would give us and the public something new and interesting to talk (or complain) about.

I think people who go to see a movie like Gods and Generals probably come out stupider vis-a-vis history than when they walked in, but if it sparks an interest in history, then they will probably find their way to better material eventually.

I have not read the book, but from what I understand it gives a pretty conventional (i.e., inaccurate) narration of Cold Harbor. I think it would be interesting to see how the LFM portrayed Cold Harbor as contrasted with the way Gettysburg portrayed Pickett’s Charge.